Day 19: National Poetry Writing Month where the challenge is to write a poem every day in April. Today Toads asks us to write a poem of less than 100 words, that includes one list of four words given within the prompt. We have five lists to choose from. I chose the list that included CANOPY, WANDER, LIGHTLY, and SPRING. Photo taken a number of years ago on our trip to Alaska.

Day 17 of National Poetry Writing Month, which is also National Haiku Poetry Day. Toads asks us to write a traditional haiku:* three lines, 5-7-5 syllabic structure
* must include a kigo (seasonal reference)
* must include a kiru (cutting/juxtapositioning/punctuation that shifts focus). Here the toy kaleidoscope becomes spring’s profusion of flowers.

Photos: first is from the San Diego Botanical Gardens last month. The lilac photo was taken last May in Harvard Arboretum’s lilac lane.

All these years later
they wait for me again,
resting on a grassy hill.

Not yet, I whisper.
Not yet.

Day 16 of National Poetry Writing Month and today Toads asks us to write about something that stems from the word “remains” — the word itself does not need to be included. This poem is also posted to dVerse, the virtual pub for poets’ Open Link Night which I host today. Poets may post one poem of their choice, no particular form or prompt. dVerse opens at 3 PM Boston time today.

Dr. Neubronner, ahead of his time.
Long before Orwell’s 1984
big brother watching you,
doc released his pigeons.
Cameras strapped to tiny chests
they reported fowl news.
Many photos feather-framed,
neighborhoods on display.

Generations later,
their jobs stolen
usurped by drones.
They simply gather now
where cracked corn is tossed.
And when they do take flight,
their only sign of rebellion?
An occasional shit upon your head.

Written for Day 15 of National Poetry Writing Month: prompt at Toads is to explore the idea of someone’s folly: the concept of building something decorative, eccentric, extravagant. . . transcending the normal range.

Dr Julius Neubronner’s Miniature Pigeon CameraIn 1908 Dr Julius Neubronner patented a miniature pigeon camera activated by a timing mechanism. The invention brought him international notability after he presented it at international expositions in Dresden, Frankfurt and Paris in 1909–1911. Spectators in Dresden could watch the arrival of the camera-equipped carrier pigeons, and the photos were immediately developed and turned into postcards which could be purchased. Photos from same article in the Public Domain Review. This post is adapted from a poem I originally wrote in 2016.

For sale
Rose-colored glasses.
Create order in your world.
Bring happy tunes to mind.
Walking on Sunshine
Don’t Worry
Be Happy.
.
So
be
it.
.
Slip-ons.
See only what is good
All else becomes invisible.
Rids evil from your world
Make happiness live
everywhere.
Buy now.

Combining two prompts here….and attempting to shape the poem like a pair of glasses…use your imagination!

Day 14 in National Poetry Month’s prompt from Toads: write somehow about the idea of the invisible or invisibility; and Poetics Tuesday at dVerse where Laura hosts and asks us to write about the idea of order. Image from Pixabay.com

Too many bits and pieces,
impossible to reassemble.
She collapsed into the abyss
eye of the storm.

Day 13: National Poetry Writing Month. Prompt from Toads was a real challenge today: 1) Write a poem using 3 to 13 words from the following quotation:

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.” ~ Diane Setterfield

2) AND the poem must employ a metaphor: a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract. In Done, the storm rages outside and inside. Love letters torn into bits and pieces are her life; in her mind, too shredded to reassemble.

FOR A MORE POSITIVE AND FUN POST TODAY, go to my prosery post, for dVerse, The Second Act.

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” The character Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing.

You in 1963. Kellerman’s Resort.
Me in 1987, some movie theater
somewhere nondescript.
You danced. Oh how you danced!

I’ve watched, over and over.
Over thirty plus years.
Your moves,
always the same.

You in 1963,
at Kellerman’s.
Me in my living room,
watching a DVD.

An odd poem to post on Easter Sunday….BUT I’m following Toads prompt for National Poetry Writing Month, day 12: write a poem to or about someone you love who doesn’t know you love them! Well, I have family and my beloved of 50 years….and really can’t think of someone who doesn’t know I love them….I’m a very demonstrative person! So best I can do is the character from Dirty Dancing, Johnny Castle. LOVE his moves and have watched the DVD many many times over the years. Also love dancing to Time of My Life with my hubby….but we don’t do the lift!

Lady in Red,
Ruler of the University.
Guardian to extraterrestrials,
humans, exactoids
and shape-shifters.

She sets the rules.
Lanes within which to live.
All played nicely
until humans did not.
They selectively listened.

She gave warnings.
Melted ice shelves
raised ocean levels
sent pestilence.
Cried foul many a time.

Still their souls eroded.
While others flourished
humans seemed to rot.
They battered earth,
debased each other.

Lady in Red,
All Seeing One.
What could she do
but plead, cajole?
Demand loudly, STOP.

They did not.

And with breaking heart
she raised her arm,
rescinded humanity.
Flung them from the field
into suffocating darkness.

Earth and all her humans,
banished from the cosmos.
Extraterrestrials, exactoids
and even shape-shifters
watched and learned.

And the Lady in Red wept
for their inhumanity,
for the world.

Day 11 of National Poetry Writing Month. Today Toads asks us to choose one of the Russian sci-fi posters provided in the prompt, and write a poem about it. I found this challenging . . . not in my comfort zone.